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SALT LAKE CITY — This Tony Finau's on fire.
The 33-year-old long driver from Salt Lake City is into the clubhouse with his first win of the 2022-23 PGA Tour season, blitzing the field at the Cadence Bank Houston Open for his first victory in his second start.
Finau took control with a 62 in the second round, survived tough conditions with a 2-under 68 in the third round, and never looked back in leading by as many as eight shots Sunday to finish with a four-day total of 16-under-par 264.
Tyson Alexander finished four shots back after shooting 66 on Sunday, the best round of the day at 4-under to hold off third-place Ben Taylor. Trey Mullinax, Alex Smalley and Alex Noren rounded out the top five at 8-under.
The Rose Park native, who still owns a home in Lehi while also living near his swing coach in Arizona, had just two wins in his first 211 starts on the PGA Tour. Fast forward more recently, and Finau picked up his third victory in seven PGA Tour events, dating back-to-back-to-back wins at last year's 3M Open and Rocket Mortgage Classic.
"That was the most important stretch of my PGA Tour career," Finau said of the time between his first and second wins. "I continued to believe, I didn't give up on myself. I continued to work hard on my body and on my game, and I was always hopeful that I could go on special runs and I think we're starting to see that now. I'm starting to put together a full package game, which is really exciting for me. That's all you can do is work hard and I've worked extremely hard on parts of the game that I know I have to and I think it's starting to show."
3 wins in his last 7 TOUR starts.@TonyFinauGolf is back on top @HouOpenGolf 🏆 pic.twitter.com/qV7KtQcMSW
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 13, 2022
Those wins propelled Finau to top-10 finishes in two of the three FedEx Cup playoff events, including ninth place at the Tour Championship, and a spot on the U.S. roster for the Presidents Cup that topped the international squad 17.5 to 12.5.
Teeing off at the top of the leaderboard at Memorial Park in Houston, Finau stretched his seven-shot lead that followed the third round with a near-flawless 4-under finish on the front nine that included a ridiculous 39-foot birdie putt on the par-5, 590-yard eighth hole.
Finau gave one back with a bogey on the par-4 10th hole, his first over-par number in 32 holes, for just his fourth bogey of the tournament. He added two more on the back nine to finish with six bogeys in 72 holes. But no one, save a brief spurt from Alexander, ever threatened.
"Great week for me," the first-time runner-up said. "I wish Tony would have taken the week off, but yeah, you know, 132 players, I think one guy's going to beat me, so that's what it's all about, just trying to beat as many people as possible."
But the West High graduate never let up, in large part by hitting a tournament-high 39 of 52 greens in regulation. Finau also averaged 299.7 yards off the tee, and added 0.97 strokes gained in putting en route to the $1.512 million top prize.
During the entire back round, Finau — a self-proclaimed "scoreboard watcher" — saw his own number move down with each bogey. But he also never saw a challenger fly closer than the four strokes of Alexander, the 34-year-old Florida native who recorded the first top-25 finish of his career.
"I got a little impatient, I felt like we were playing really slow and for some reason that threw me off a little bit and I think cost me a couple bogeys," Finau said. "I might have rushed on some shots, but lesson to be learned and luckily for me learning and a win is nice."
